A/N: Thanks for all the reviews and if you haven't left a review I would like one so I know people are actually reading this.

This is the longest chapter I have written for this story so far. Enjoy!

Thanks to my mother in law and my friend Marilyn for helping me edit this. Love you

Warning: Chapter contains violence and mild language.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything Twi related.

Chapter 7 Moonlight

As I pulled out my phone and dialed Edward, even though I knew he couldn't hear me, I hoped it would inform him that there was something wrong. While I was dialing I heard the crunch on footsteps on the road and whipped around noticing a man wearing a black ski mask and holding a rope. His masculine figure looked familiar.

"Well, well…what do we have here?"

My eyes locked onto his as I tried to discreetly slip my phone back into my pocket. He noticed what I was trying to do and grabbed my left wrist. His hands were covered by black leather gloves and his teeth glowed in the moonlight.

"I thought we had shut you up...you just keep poking your nose around where it doesn't belong." He sneered at me and I jumped. He grabbed my phone and threw it at a nearby tree, smashing it into a thousand pieces.

"We spared your life once….but we won't be making that same mistake twice." He growled at me.

Shocked and ultimately confused I went into defense mode, I didn't know for sure what was happening, who this man was, but I knew I had met him somewhere before and at this moment he was going to kill me. All right, I told myself, you are a police chief's daughter, suck it up and make Charlie happy. I started to breathe heavier, the adrenaline spiking to unreasonable levels, the anger inside me started to boil. I took a stance, tightened my muscles in my legs, balled my right fist and before I knew it my fist met his left cheek sending him to topple over and hit the side of my truck and then he was down. Luckily he had let go of my wrist in the process, so I spun around and headed for the trees and ran with every fiber of my being. The moon was full and it was cascading light through the trees making everything not too unbearable to see. Jumping over fallen trees, I ran and ran, pushing my legs faster and faster. Breathing harder and harder, all I could hear was my own blood pumping in my ears.

Making myself focus, I thought about what I needed to do next, where was I going, could I lose him. Breaking my train of thought I started hearing him coming up behind me and then he was yelling.

"BELLA, YOU AREN'T GOING TO OUTRUN ME………..IF YOU GIVE UP NOW I WILL KILL YOU QUICKLY."

Was he kidding, I am a fighter; I will fight till I take my last breath. By now I was breathing so hard sweat was beading on my forehead and then dripping into my eyes, along with the blood from the cut, making it harder for me to see. I tried swiping the sweat from my eyes, but it wasn't working, my vision blurred and then it happened; I tripped over a log and fell fast and hard to the ground into some damp dirt. I tried to cover myself with more dirt hoping that it would camouflage me a little. It didn't work, while I was stammering up all of a sudden the man plowed into me smashing my head to the ground, flipping me over to my back, he put his knee into my stomach and pushed my hands above my head holding them with one of his hands.

What happened next was both shocking and enlightening at the same time. The piercing rage of his ocean blue eyes made everything that happened in the last six months flash before my eyes. I know this man.

Tears ran from my eyes and I remembered back when we taught the children at school about stranger danger and what you were suppose to do if a stranger grabbed you. Of course I thought nothing would happen, but I screamed, no, I actually screamed and there it was.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

He picked up the rock, hit me, everything went black.

*********

∞Edward∞

I couldn't be happier than I was now, no I actually could because Bella wasn't going to be totally happy until she could speak again and found Bree.

As I opened the door to my house, who was I kidding, my parent's house, it was eleven thirty. Not quite ready for bed I decided to take a shower. I took my time in the shower letting the day with Bella replay in my mind; by the time I got out of the shower and shaved it was midnight. Pulling out my laptop and turning it on I decided to try some research myself on Bree. Just as I was typing it into Google my phone went off, it was Bella. This was strange; she never called me because well she couldn't talk. I flipped it open and said hello. All I could hear was some static and then what I heard next sent a chill up my back.

"Well, well…what do we have here?" A man's rough voice played through the phone. What the hell!

My first instinct was to get to her. While still listening on the phone I managed to get dressed, put my shoes on and then I grabbed my keys heading out to my car.

The next thing I heard sent me over the edge.

"I thought we had shut you up...you just keep poking your nose around where it doesn't belong."

"We spared your life once….but we won't be making that same mistake twice." He growled!

Clatter, clang, clang and the phone went dead.

Shit!!!!

Okay, Okay don't panic she's alive, she'll be all right. Need to find her, is she at her house? Why does this road have to be so long? Wait….wait is that her truck?

I pulled over to the side of the road behind her truck and got out. Steadily I made my way over to her truck, looking around to see if anything else around the road seemed out of the ordinary. As I approached the driver's side, the door was open, so I looked inside. Grabbing onto the steering wheel I leaned in and noticed her keys were still in the ignition. Removing my hand from the steering wheel I noticed that there was blood on my hand and then I started really panicking, she's hurt. Where is she?

Wiping the blood from my hand onto my pants, I realized what I should have done in the first place was call 911. While I was freeing my phone from my pocket I noticed some movement in the trees about a hundred yards up the road. Looking closer, I noticed it was a tall dark haired man with darker skin and he was carrying something. It was Bella. Was this the man that was after her?

Launching into a sprint I made my way up the road and started shouting.

"PUT HER DOWN…..GET AWAY FROM HER!"

"Hey man…calm down…I saved her life," the man bellowed while pulling Bella closer to him.

"Who are you? What happened to her?" I asked while catching my breath.

"I'll tell you all you need to know, but let's get her into your car and to the hospital, she needs a doctor," he stiffly said as he motioned and walked toward my car.

He put her in the back seat and climbed in the front. Getting in the driver's seat I turned and looked at Bella, she had blood running down her forehead and down her nose. Her face was caked with dirt along with all her clothes, she did not look well, and she looked dead.

Turning the car on and getting back on the highway I turned and looked at the man sitting in my passenger seat.

"So are you going to tell me who you are and what happened?" I asked feeling a little annoyed because he was sitting there like all of this had no affect on him.

He slammed his fist into his hand and answered, "My name is Jacob Black," he paused. "I live on La Push reservation and the woods are my backyard. When I can't sleep, which is quite a bit, I go for long walks through the woods to clear my head so I can sleep. Usually my walks are fairly quiet, but tonight was different. I just started my walk for the night when I heard someone scream."

"Wait, what did you say, you heard someone scream?" I asked sounding really confused.

"Yep, that's right, I heard a scream. Sounded like a woman's scream," he said sounding really annoyed.

"Why do you act all shocked? Wouldn't you scream if someone was attacking you," he stated while pointing his finger at me.

"She can't talk…she lost her voice…wait…what…she was being attacked?"

"Well she apparently she can talk now….yes she was being attacked…just shut up for a minute and let me finish," he replied with a sudden urgency in his tone. "I ran towards her scream and found a man, dressed in dark clothes with a black ski mask and black gloves. He was on top of her holding her arms down above her head with a rock in his hands. Um…it looked like he had just hit her with it. Then he looked up and noticed I was there so he threw the rock down and took off running out of sight. My only concern was to see if she was still alive. When I came up to her I checked her pulse and noticed she was taking short shallows breaths. I didn't want to cause further damage, but I just couldn't leave her there just in case he came back to finish what he started. So I figured if I got her to the road that maybe I could flag someone down to help us, and that's where you came in."

I took a deep breath and turned in my seat and took a quick glance at Bella, she was still out cold and I did notice on the top left side of her head that her hair was stained and matted with blood. Stepping on the gas I felt a sudden urgency that we needed to get her to the hospital so I could thoroughly examine her and treat her injuries.

Noticing my large increase in speed I peaked over at Jacob who was looking at the speedometer, seeming quite nervous he asked, "So, I was wondering if you knew why that guy was after her and why he would want to harm her?"

Cutting to the chase I made a long story short and told him about Bree, Bella's disappearance and our recent findings.

"Oh, this is Chief Swan's Bella, he came to the reservation back in December around Christmas time and showed us a picture of her asking if we had ever seen her before," he reconnected with a memory. "With all that dirt covering her I didn't recognize her."

"By the way thanks for saving her….you were at the right place at the right time," I said gratefully.

"Well, it would have been better if I got to her before he hit her with that rock," he answered with a small chuckle and I concurred with a nod.

By the time we arrived at the hospital, I had already called Carlisle to meet us there and had the ER staff on alert. We entered the hospital, Jacob carried Bella and I went ahead making sure everything was in order. Jacob placed her on a bed and I stepped out to find clean scrubs to change into and then I washed up.

Upon returning to Bella, Carlisle and some nurses worked on her. Luckily she was still breathing and her heart rate was good and stabilized. We all proceeded to clean her up, washing her face and cleaning the cut on her forehead and the one on top of her head. She was looking better, but still unconscious.

It was interesting how I went from concerned boyfriend, was I her boyfriend, to Dr. Edward Cullen, but that's how I was and it was definitely something I wasn't going to ignore because I personally was able to help her.

Standing on the side of her bed I stroked her cheek with the back of my hand, humming a tune that reminded me of how I felt about us, I'll Stand By You by The Pretenders*. It was killing me inside seeing her lying there like this again and I wished to myself that there was some way I could've prevented this from happening, but there wasn't. Putting my lips to her ear I whisper sweetly, "I'll stand by you always, you won't ever be alone… I love you." Then I placed a chaste kiss to her soft lips.

Jacob sat in the corner with look of uneasiness on his face, but all I could do was focus on Bella hoping she would wake up soon.

On the other side of the hospital curtain we heard panicked voices.

"Where is she, where's my daughter?" Rene's agonizing voice rang out.

"Rene, calm down so the doctors can talk to us," Charlie cut in being firm.

Carlisle serenely interrupted, "She's all right, and she's right through there, but try and calm down."

As Rene pulled the curtain back slowly she let out a long distressing sigh. She came over and pulled Bella's hand into hers and brought it to her cheek.

With a soft whisper she asked herself, "How much more can you handle, baby?"

Sounding very irritated Chief Swan finally spoke up, "So, can you tell us what happened? When Rene and I got back around one from Seattle Bella's truck was gone and then we got a phone call from the hospital. On the way in we noticed her truck off to the side of the road, smashed up and then we really were freaked out."

I filled him in on the information I knew and then introduced him to Jacob, so he could give him further details about her attacker.

An hour sluggishly went by; Rene was in and out pacing, getting coffee and growing restless. I sat there as calm as I could be, still humming different songs and passively kissing the back of her hand while I was caressing it in mine. Come on baby, wakeup. I am here for you. I am not leaving.

Another hour passed and I had her hand pressed to my forehead; her fingers started to move, so I quickly snapped my head to look at her face. Her eyes began to flutter and open revealing the chocolate brown that I loved. She looked at me and her lips curled into a small smile.

"Edward," she whispered while pulling her hand abruptly to her mouth, shocked to learn that she could talk.

My eyebrows shot up and my lips widened into a delightful smile, "I knew your voice would sound like an angels."

She laughed and it was like angels were dancing, but all too quick her face went pale and her eyes pooled up with tears.

Stroking her cheek I asked her alarmingly, "What's wrong sweetheart, are you okay?"

Breaking into a full outcry she struggled to answer, "It's…..it's…just that……I am happy….to have my voice back….but…but…I remember ev…ev….everything that has happened…to me…..and…and to Bree….oh my gosh….no Bree."

******

∞Bella∞

As I closed my eyes and looked down I tried to contain my crying, my head was throbbing, I placed my hand over my forehead and then to the top of my head flinching at the pain. I am not sure if my head can take anymore beatings.

Looking up from my lashes I saw the faces of my parents, Edward and a tall, russet haired, bronzed skinned man.

I glanced over to Edward and back to this dark man as if I was asking a silent question.

"Oh, Bella, this is Jacob Black, he saved you from that man." Edward spoke up while looking at me apprehensively.

"Actually," Jacob interjected, "more like scared the guy off, like you said Edward…right place…right time," he corrected as he smiled at me.

"Thank you, I thought I was dead when I saw him pick up that rock. I don't really know how many lives I have left in me," I chuckled trying to make the tension in the air lighter; man you really could cut it with a knife.

Stepping forward and cutting to the chase Charlie interrupted with a discerned look, "Well, Bella, since you did say you remembered what happened; do you feel up to enlightening the rest of us?"

Looking up at my dad, I couldn't help but feel this huge aching hole inside my stomach. I knew now the reasons why I kept everything from them and how all this information led me to being so detached from every one that I loved. How could I simply tell them I was trying to keep them safe? The mere thought of all this information hurting them killed me inside. Realizing now that no matter what was said I was already putting them in danger, so maybe it wouldn't hurt to talk to them and help shed some light.

Taking a deep cleansing breath I prepared myself to dispel the unpleasant information.

"Hmm…where do I start? Okay…the only memory I had before tonight was the one about the first day I met Bree." I looked over at Edward confirming my memory. "You know the one about the bruise on her arm." He nodded. "Well, now I remember everything else….and it got worse for her.

"Numerous times she would come to class and wasn't able to sit in her chair, acting as if it pained her to do so. With each passing day she became more distant and distressed. I focused all my attention to try and figure out how to reach her. I thought about talking to a doctor about her and seeing what my options were, but I felt that I needed to pull her aside to see if I could do it myself. When I did finally get to talk to her alone after class, she would flinch every time I came to close to her. I tried giving her comfort and told her that she could trust me. She finally eased up and let her walls fall.

"She informed me that she could not tell me the names of the people who were hurting her because if she did they would kill her and the others. She wouldn't tell me who the other people were. She did confess that it wasn't her brother that hurt her. Also she did say that there was more to the problem than she could let me know for her safety, for the 'other's' and also for mine.

"Each day passed and I could see her soul slipping away. It drove me crazy so I took it upon myself to look into it." Charlie looked at me and seemed to be completely frustrated because he had always told me since I was little to come to him if I ever had a problem and that he would fix it.

"I know, I know Dad; I should have come to you, but I thought if I got enough information then I would come to you. Anyhow, so I decided to go talk to her dad at Outfitter's. Now I have known Mike for years and he didn't seem like the type to physically abuse his own child, let alone condone anyone else doing it. When I got to Outfitter's, Tyler Crowley was working, so I asked to see Mike. He went to the back of the store and then Mike walked out greeting me. He did not look well….his eyes sunk in with dark circles around them…he had lost weight and looked like a beanpole…also he looked like Bree…soulless. When I asked him about Bree he just gritted his teeth, glared at me and ordered me to leave things alone, to forget it.

"All right everyone you know how stubborn I am." They all chuckled, except Jacob, and nodded their heads. "So of course I pushed it. I would try every day to get Bree to tell me more, but she never offered anything more than what I already knew. I stayed up late every night trying to figure this out. I even went to the lengths of seeing if Bree would let me look at the marks on her body, but she wouldn't and I didn't want to upset her anymore than she already was.

"Then December 9th, Bree didn't show up for school and I went insane. I actually did get sick; I threw up because I thought something terrible had happened to her. So I left work and went to Outfitter's. There was nobody there, but the door was unlocked so I went in. I heard shouting coming from downstairs. I walked slowly down the stairs and…..that's when I saw them," I paused feeling a weight on my chest. "His entire family, Mike, Lauren, Riley and Bree were all on their knees facing the wall. There were two people standing behind them wearing black ski masks, one was my attacker from tonight and the other looked like a woman. She had trouble hiding her hair and I noticed some curly red hair peeking out of the back of her mask. They had guns pointed at their heads."

By now all of them were so close to my bed they were practically sitting on it. Their eyes were wide and shocked as they took in every word I was telling them.

"I didn't make any noise, but they must have seen me because they turned and looked at me. I quickly turned around ran up the stairs. I got out the front doors and I tried to run to my truck, but I was too late. The man had reached me, grabbed my hair and slammed me down in the parking lot. He tried to strangle me, but I just passed out." I realized at that moment that I had dreamed about what happened to me and it was that same dream that had brought me out of my coma.

I looked at all of their shocked faces, "Do all of you really want to know what happened next?" I hesitantly asked because I really didn't know if my mom was going to handle this part, she seemed a little on edge and she was crying already so I didn't know if she could take anymore.

Edward came over and placed a light kiss on my lips and caressed my cheek, "Bella, we are all here for you and we want to know what you have been through. And with every bone in my body I will make sure that nobody will hurt you anymore." With that I caressed his cheek and leaned in and kissed him back. I was blessed to be surrounded by people that loved me.

"Okay then," I started shaking and the thought of what I was going to tell them sent cold shivers up my spine, "I can't…I can't go into detail…it hurts too much." I shook my head and told myself to, get it over with. "When I came around I was back downstairs with the Newton's. All I could do is look at all of them; they had been beaten and all of their faces were streaked with sweat, blood and tears. Then I noticed that there was one more man in the back of the room sitting in the corned in the dark. I couldn't see him, but he spoke to me and said "See what happens when you poke your nose in where it doesn't belong; now we can't let you go."

"The head guy made the other man and woman beat each one of us one by one while we watched. Mike begged and pleaded for them to stop. When we screamed they tortured us more, even if it was just bending our fingers back. The head guy never addressed the man and woman by name. He called the man number one and the woman number two and they called him Master. While they beat us he kept saying to Mike "If you had given me what I wanted then your family and this nosy teacher would not have gotten hurt." I was so confused, we weren't allowed to speak or even make contact with each other. I lost track of the days and didn't know how long we were down there. Every time they left they put handcuffs on us and hook us together, turned out the lights and locked the basement door.

"We would hear customers above walking around talking, but we all knew if we called out we would be dead. They never fed us and I noticed Bree was getting so sick and started to be unresponsive. I was so worried she was going to die. I knew I needed to get out and get help. I had already tested to see if I could get my hands out the cuffs and I could because my hands are freakishly small. Mike and Lauren tried to convince me not to, but I just couldn't sit there and watch all of us suffer. As quiet as I could I slipped out of the cuffs and tried to make my way out through the basement window. I was almost out, but number one grabbed my legs and yanked me back into the basement, he punched me in the mouth sending me to the ground, wrapped a rope around my neck so tight cutting off my air. Then number two came over and took a golf club and hit my arm; I tried to scream but the rope was too tight. The whimpers and cries from the Newton's struck me harder than the blows I was taking because I knew I had failed them. They flipped me over twisting my arm; I was in so much pain I felt my soul leave my body and then I was watching myself being beaten. The last thing I felt was a big strike against my head and then I was gone."

I heard gasps in the room and the fell uncomfortably silent for a moment.

"Oh, Bella, sweetheart," Edward quietly said as he pulled my hand to his mouth as kissed it. "You were so brave."

"Edward, how can you say that? They are all probably dead and it's my fault! I am not brave, I am stupid. We have to find them."

Jacob rudely cut in, "Every one out, I need to talk to Bella."

"What are you talking about? We are not leaving her. Why do you want to talk to her?" Edward stood up and moved across the room inches away from Jacob's face.

"Bella, I'm not who you think I am."